A recent trip to Disney World was a memorable experience in many ways. However, as an entrepreneur, the lessons for product development approaches sparked a presentation. One of the mind-boggling parts of the experience was the way the culture has been built and maintained. There is a “Disney experience” ever visitor is likely to have. This experience is amazingly consistent when you think about how big that organization is. Thus, there are several concepts we can learn from their success.
Brands and Product Development
While customer service and culture provide lessons, we focus more on the ability to build and maintain brands. Disney World has evolved over the years to stay modern while maintaining its roots. The vast library of movies and characters they have produced still feel like they are overshadowed by The Mouse in that environment. Thus, the iconic mouse ears are as much a part of that world today as they were decades ago.
Think about this from a product perspective. The flagship product (Mickey Mouse) is far from their biggest moneymaker. However, they still give service to that product while marching forward in so many other directions. That is where we can learn lessons for product development, enhancements, and keeping customers loyal while expanding on that base. In this presentation, that is a large part of our focus. We look at ways to steadily improve our offering without alienating our customers. We also see ways to test market new features safely and gradually improve on beloved functionality.
The Mentor-Mastermind Group
This series comes from our mentoring/mastermind classes. These classes are virtual meetings that focus on how to improve our technical skills and build our businesses. The goals of each member vary. However, this diversity makes for great discussions and a ton of educational value every time we meet. We hope you enjoy viewing this series as much as we enjoy creating it. As always, this may not be all new to you, but we hope it helps you be a better developer. Drop us a line to find out when the next one is so you can join our group.
Slide Deck: Embracing80-20
